Sask. blizzard strands couple for more than 16 hours on highway

An Alberta couple spent Wednesday morning waiting for a snowplow on Highway 39 near Estevan.

Darlene Waller told 650 CKOM’s Brent Loucks that she and her husband Steve were in a semi truck headed to the United States border out of British Columbia. She said the plan was to go through Estevan, pick up cargo then head back.

That changed when they drove right into the teeth of Tuesday’s blizzard around 2 p.m.

“We only had like 60 kilometres to go and then we were turning around and going back again. We sort of wanted the weekend off, but I’m not sure that’s going to work,” she said Wednesday with a chuckle.

Waller and her husband had been stuck in their truck for 16 hours by the time they spoke to Loucks just after 6:30 a.m. Wednesday.

She said another semi had its trailer flip over across the road, likely due to high winds, stranding her and several other vehicles.

“Some of the cars have decided that maybe they could pass the truck. So they have come on the wrong side of the road, only to find out that they can’t go anywhere, either,” she said.

Waller said she and her husband have been alright, their rig is fitted out pretty much like a small RV.

“It’s not so bad, we have T.V. here. Well, we have DVDs,” she added.

Waller said conditions were looking better Wednesday morning. While she said the highway was still covered in snow drifts as large as one metre tall, she was thankful Tuesday’s heavy winds seemed to have died down.

Environment Canada reported that wind gusts hit speeds as high as 95 kilometres per hour in the Estevan area on Tuesday.

“We have a small dog and I said to my husband, ‘you have to put her on the leash or else she’s going to blow away,'” Waller said.

Waller said she hoped crews would arrive soon.

“So far this morning, we’ve seen absolutely nobody. No snowmobiles, anybody. I’m quite surprised, thinking the trucks are probably okay, like us, we have a lot of things. But these cars, I don’t know,” she said.